Online forums are awash with advice on how to prepare your workshop to minimise the effects of Covid-19, so we don’t need to repeat what everyone knows. But here are a few of the suggestions we at DTC have found most useful.
- Use a consistent pairing system if people have to work in close proximity, e.g. two-person lifting.
- Stagger break times to reduce pressure on break rooms and ensure social distancing is maintained
- Encourage staff to stay on-site during working hours.
- Where people are split into teams or shift groups, fix these groups so that where contact is unavoidable, it happens between the same people.
- Identify areas where people have to directly pass things to each other, for example, job information or spare parts and find ways to remove direct contacts such as through the use of drop-off points or transfer zones.
- Identify areas of the business where few employees have the required skills – consider additional training employees in these skills so that if there is an outbreak, production doesn’t have to stop completely.
- Continually review your risk assessments – the Covid-19 situation is continuously changing so the level of risk may change. Government guidelines often change, so make sure your risk assessment reflects this.
Contractors or visitors
- See if schedules for essential services and contractors can be arranged to minimise overlap between people, e.g. see if they can come at night.
- Maintain a record of all visitors wherever possible.
